Project Summary: Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core (PESC) The overall goal of the Pilot and Exploratory Studies Core (PESC) is to promote innovative and promising research addressing the predictors, outcomes and amelioration of late-life disability, especially in vulnerable populations. This renewal application builds on the success of the UCSF PESC over the past 4 years in identifying promising pilots that led to 11 R01 or equivalent awards, 7 other R-series awards, 7 K-level awards, 1 NIH New Innovator award, and 31 grants from non-NIH funding sources. The PESC will promote innovative and promising research by leveraging pilot funding into future grants through the following specific aims: 1. Identify and foster champions in aging research through the solicitation and selection of innovative proposals from highly qualified applicants. 2. Provide investigators of PESC studies support in study design, analysis, recruitment and retention of diverse and vulnerable populations through use of the OAIC Cores, specifically the Data and Analysis Core (DAC) and the Vulnerable Aging Recruitment and Retention Core (VARC). 3. Integrate PESC studies and investigators with resources from the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), the Center for Aging in Diverse Communities, the Center for Vulnerable Populations, and other relevant resources at UCSF. 4. Foster the success of PESC studies through regular OAIC engagement with PESC awardees and augmented tracking of pilot studies? progress and impact. 5. Promote diversity among researchers in aging, through participation in the OAIC-wide Diversity Program that offers specific support for candidates from diverse backgrounds who apply for PESC funding. Through the PESC, promising investigators conducting aging research will have a mechanism to obtain crucial preliminary data upon which to build future independently-funded research projects relating to the OAIC theme.